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In the past few days I’ve been tackling sprite linearts. I’ve had ugly sketches as placeholders since forever in the game as you can see:

With lineart like that you’d bet I’d threaten him! Threaten to clean that mess up a little. Now my main 3 guys are done-ish. Riley (the middle guy) has gone through a little bishi-fication in the face region (his hair in particular was kind of lame), but he’s still his goofy old self. ^_^ He took the makeover like a trooper.

Kiran (left guy) is perfect as he is, of course (Kiran: “Where do I sign up for more skulls in my design?”). Meanwhile Harley is too busy to care what happens to his design. He has important plans to take care of, you wouldn’t understand.

I don’t think I’ve ever talked about any specific visual novel other than my own on my blog, but today is special. *throws confetti* While I couldn’t make a game of my own for NaNoReNo this year (that game jam type of event where you try to finish a visual novel in a month), I created some backgrounds for someone else’s game. If you’ve played a VN called Seduce me, or one of her other VNs, you might know who this is.

The VN is titled “Love and Romance – A Study of Intimacy”. As you might be able to tell by the title, it is a more mature kind of game, but there are several ways to avoid getting in too deep. Even without the NSFW aspect, it’s a cute and fluffy game with adorable characters. You can check it out and download it HERE.

Trankill is a virtual fighting game and the focus of my game, Tranquil Tempest. I can only hope that within my lifetime I’ll be able to play such a game IRL. Hmm… Maybe not a fighting game, as I don’t think I’d be very good at those. But there are already a lot of promising developments in that area so I’m hopeful ^_^

In Tranquil Tempest, the protagonist plays this game as more than a hobby or a sport, but as a job, since points earned in TK are accepted as currency by a good number of businesses. The TK experience is fully immersive, aka you must wear a device on your wrist while in a match (the TK tracker). This device connects the player to the world of TK, but can also be used as a watch, phone, TV, music player, web browser, etc. Playing a match is like being asleep, your body doesn’t move, but instead all of the motions are performed by your avatar.

There are 10 levels in TK. You start at level 1 and work your way up by beating players of your level or slightly higher. With each level you gain, you receive more points for your victories, but, while at level 1 you feel no pain from getting hit in game, the higher your level, the more pain you feel. Level 10 is said to be the “realistic pain level”.

The concept of the game may not be entirely original. The idea came to me after playing a visual novel named Togainu no Chi. It’s also about a fighting game, but it’s a lot less virtual and a lot more deadly. Since I’ve started creating Tranquil Tempest I’ve come across a whole bunch of similar themes (virtual games where you need to wear some kind of device, fighting-style games) in other media, but by now I know there’s no way to make something entirely original so I don’t let that bother me too much.

In TK not everyone can make a profit, most people pay money to play, as expected. It has become somewhat of an addiction for the poorer half of the young population looking for a quick way to get money. However few are as skilled as Juni. Not that her opponents would ever admit that, they all call her a cheater because of her unorthodox way of winning. That’s all fine by her because TK is a world where no one knows who she is.

I’ve always been referring to the act of enjoying a visual novel as “playing”, but apparently not everyone agrees. My boyfriend isn’t really a fan of the stuff and always corrects my “play” to “read”. He thinks that if it doesn’t involve skills it can’t be played. (reading is a skill, right?) At the same time I think a VN can have much more layers than just reading. There’s music and pictures too, so read doesn’t quite cut it for me.

On the other side I really admire visual novels with simulation elements. The ones with daily planners, stat-raising, inventory, wardrobe and things like that. It really makes the whole thing seem more like a game. Each format has it’s cons though. This type of VN can be annoying sometimes because skipping big chunks of story isn’t an option the second time around, like it is for pure visual novels. I have played Tokimemo GS 1 and 2 and I have suffered through the hours and hours of save-load and got to the end just to somehow realize I’d screwed it up at some point.

I definitely consider these types of visual novel as games, since they are more interactive. As for skill… something like an idle game is still a game although there’s little to no skill involved, just clicking and upgrading.

Regardless of the way you prefer to call it or the type of games you enjoy, I do think visual novels are becoming less of a niche. I mean there are even some on Steam. It makes me happy to see the medium “growing up” and reaching more people. Looking forward to the day I can be the girl saying, “Oh, you like that game? Well I’ve been playing visual novels since before you learned how to use a computer. Also get off my lawn!” ^_^

So, remember that teaser for a thing called Tranquil Tempest like a billion years ago? Well I am finally getting back in the saddle so to speak and starting working on it again. Given that it’s a big game (for one person to make at least) progress is slow, but I will try to keep at it. I’m hoping to make this my first commercial game, although you can expect a low price or even a pay-what-you-want type deal.

Once I get all my shtuff together I will make it a proper Work In Progress page with screenshots and everything.

The game is set in an alternate universe and has 3(?) pursueable characters. So far I have around 70% of the story written, but the endings are still up in the air. I know aproximately what I want to do for each character and they will each have a good ending and possibly several not so good endings. I want the endings to depend on the choices you’ve made not only to win the character’s aproval but also that establish some “traits”. So if you normally tend to resolve problems with violence, this will be reflected in the ending you will get. It may not sound very complicated, but there are a lot of variables to consider.